"Entertainment Overburn"

It was an ultimate `entertainment week' for me. Fun eh? well, quite, but it was just too tiring!

To summarise: In the last three days, I watched three movies - Over the Hedge, M:I:III, The DaVinci Code ; watched two theatrical shows - Wanton Me! and Grease The Musical, and covered three entertainment assignments and worked on a few entertainment articles - won't name them..

Now I am feeling overdose so much that if you offer me to go to one more movie or concert/show for free, I won't do it.. I can't.

That's why I decided not to go for X-men3 media preview tomorrow.. I really need my sleep. I preivewed Over the Hedge and DVC - in the early (to me at least) hours of the morning and my sleep duration had been suffering..

Just came back from Grease The Musical. It's one of those rare occasions these days that I actually paid for tickets (reasons being since i don't know the organiser and it's a foreign show; AND it's actually quite nice to go together with my group of friends). But just my luck. For the RM170 ticket we paid, the show was a real let down.

In fact, it would be a let down for whatever ticket price.

Our seats weren't exactly good even for RM200 non-discounted - it was so far away from the stage. You wont believe that for the first 15 -20 minutes of the show, the sound system was atrocious! When the performers spoke or sang, what came out from the stage and front did not synch. with the speakers at the back. We were hearing echo throughout!

The whole flow was very choppy. The singing was so-so (save for one or two), the choreography ameteurish, and the acting was bad! I kinda agree with Lynn that in a way, it's like a college play.. ok, maybe it would be pretty good for a college play but heck, this is a touring international musical production!

My only thought was: what a waste of my energy and time.. I could have been at home and rest and would probably be up to catching X-men. Then again maybe not..

Well, at least out of all the above entertainment programs I had, I enjoyed two out of the three movies. Da Vinci Code was pretty disappointing but I won't elaborate here - too tired and in case people think I'll give spoilers.. If you're intersted, can read two friends and bloggers reviews here and here

I also enjoyed Wanton Me! - a stand-up comedy and music show by two talented comedians across the Causeway - it was very entertaining. The jokes were quite raunchy but it was a good stress buster and I laughed so hard!

Speaking of this show, oh, I have some grouses to let out!! I had interviewed Selena Tan and Hossan Leong like three weeks ago when they were here for a PC and wrote the story for the first issue of Weekend Mail to be out this Sat, and my editor knew and agreed all along. So the page had been subbed, laid out and improved over the last two weeks. And then.... last nite, the Media Prima boss who actually look through all the pages, decided to scrap it!!

Reason being that NST had published an article on this too. But hey, it was obvious we could not beat them as we didn't have a paper till this weekend..!

I was so upset and enraged that I went directly to the MM editor in chief and voiced it out to him. Well, I knew the decision couldn't be reversed but I just wanted to let them know how unfair this was and how pissed off I was! He pacified me in a way by giving me some seemingly valid excuses - "we want "the best' for the first issue" (Hello! why didn't you realise that the`timing' would pose this `problem' to make it not `the best'?!) and he ended up by saying he knew how passionate I am about my work and he likes that.

Hmmm.. Ok. Case close. But I am still upset especially I feel bad for the people at Gardner & Wife. I had to write them an email to apologise and explain to them that the article wont be out anymore..

What a great start for me for the new paper huh?

But on another note, the amount of work load is really increasing.. this coming week is a die-die week. Need to complete four full-length articles including a cover story and two columns by next Friday - don't forget I need time to research or interview people. Thanks to one extra piece to work on as they brought forward my theatre story i had already done in advance to replace Wanton Me!

Tomorrow afternoon is the new Malay Mail trade launch - at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (where we just went for Grease!) and the journalists too are expected to be there to.

And you wonder why I still have the energy and inspiration to blog..

I guess this is MY blog and I can write whatever I want.. Writing is therapeutic. But not when I have 1001 deadlines to meet at work.

Ok, better stop before I sound incoherent. Thanks to a hectic entertainment week....